“To proclaim the gospel is to announce the mystery of ’sonship’ and ‘brotherhood’, a mystery hidden – as Paul says – from the beginning of time and revealed now in Christ dead and resurrected. For this reason, to evangelize is to come together in ecclesia, to assemble together. Only in community can faith be lived, celebrated, and deepened, lived out through one act as fidelity to the Lord and solidarity towards all people. To accept the Word is to turn ourselves to ‘the Other’ in others. It is with them that we live the Word. Faith is not to be found in private or in intimacy; faith is the denial of the retreat into ourselves.”

- Gustavo Gutierrez, The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology: The task and content of liberation theology.

Why is it that Mother Teresa could stand up before crowds of thousands and simply repeat simple New Testament phrases, and blow people away?!

She didn’t say anything new: “Jesus loves you,” she assured us. “We’re sons and daughters of God and we have to love Jesus’ poor.” Yet people walked out renewed, transformed and converted.

She wasn’t a priest. She wasn’t well-educated. Her authority came from her life-style and her pure goodness.

Servanthood with basic holiness is the true basis of authority in the Church, much more than title, vestment, office, or ordination. It has the authority of Jesus himself.

Adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, pp. 384-385

The Greek word metanoia, usually translated “repent,” quite literally means to “change your mind,” to turn around and operate differently. Given that, it is rather amazing that Christian history has largely become a protection of the status quo—through its complicity with war, the upper classes in most of its history, and with people who do not like change at all. You would have thought Jesus had said “stay the same” instead of “change”!

(Fr. Richard Rohr, Fall 2009)

Simplicity, many people think,
is an end in itself
But they’re getting it backwards
Simplicity is the path, the means
It’s not a far off destination,
somewhere in the future
It’s right here, right now
It’s taking things one at a time
It’s asking simple questions
It’s taking simple actions
It’s doing it slowly
It’s considering and being conscious,
with everything

When you find yourself becoming overwhelmed
on the path to simplicity
Taking a complicated, frenzied path
to get there
Stop, consider, and choose
the simpler path
And take it slowly
And easily
And lovely

Simplicity is the path, not just the destination, by Leo Babauta

I have often said that the soul cause of man’s unhappiness is that

he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.

This avoidance defies explanation until we understand how dualistic thinking protects and pads the ego and its fear of change. Notice that the things we ignored above require actual change of our lifestyle, our security systems, or our dualistic thought patterns. The things we emphasized instead were usually intellectual beliefs or moral superiority stances that asked little of us: the divinity of Christ, the virgin birth, the atonement theory, and beliefs about reproduction and sex. After a while, you start to recognize the underlying bias. The ego diverts your attention from anything that would ask you to change, to righteous causes that invariably ask others to change." (p. 94)

I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me in any place of service,
rank me with any type of people;
Put me to work,
put me to suffering.
Let me be useful for you
or laid aside for you,
exalted for you
or brought low by thee.
Let me be full,
let me be empty.
Let me have all things,
let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to your pleasure and for your use.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

- John Wesley, adapted
(HT: Sacred Journeys in LA)